Improving Bounce Rates for Blogs
Blogged By: Low Hang Wei @ September 10th, 2008 - 4:16 pmFor the benefit of those who do not know what bounce rate is, I’ll probably have to explain it first. Bounce rate is simply the percentage of visitors who go to your website and leaves without clicking on any other page. In effect, a 50% bounce rate implies that 50% of your visitors are not interested to spend time clicking on any of your page. Without doubt, a high bounce rate implies that a website is uninteresting and is a genuine cause for concern for webmasters or bloggers.
Well… the reason for posting this specific topic today is partly due to the fact that this blog has experiences of high bounce rates and I’m going to dig into the specific reasons. When I looked at my site’s bounce rate of 70+%, I can honestly tell you that I felt like the skies were falling on me. Am I so boring that visitors to my site are more interested in clicking the cross on the top right, rather than on any other link to read what I have to say? Fortunately, bounce rate on my home page is only 40% and it isn’t that scary compared to 70%.
I began searching the internet to find common bounce rates and found that blogs typically have higher bounce rates than other websites. Of course, this does not imply that blogs are more boring than other kinds of websites. After digging into my statistics, I believe I have a more reasonable explanation for high bounce rates in blogs, or my blog specifically.
Firstly, the most obvious thing I checked for is bounce rates for individual days. I have found a very direct link to postings and bouncing. My bounce rate tends to be high on days where I did not post any new content and low on days where I posted something. Below is the illustration of bounce rates, but of course the actual graph isn’t that smooth.
Anyway, this brings upon the first realization of the importance to keep blogging consistently if you want to grow a blog. It’s nowhere as interesting to dig through content from months ago, compared to reading the most current content. Anyway, my statistics suggest two possibilities:
1) Visitors leave if they think that there is no new content
2) I have a very loyal following of visitors who consistently comes back to check for new content and they will stay only if they see something new.
Both factors are likely in my case, especially number 2, since more than 40% of my visitors are returning visitors.
I went on deeper to find the places they found my site from and the pages on my site they entered from. Observing these interesting statistics tell me that I have been attracting visitors of all kind, since my traffic is mostly from search engines and people are coming in for many different search terms. For example, a lot of people came into my blog for hi hi puffy ami yumi because I posted a video of them before. These people are obviously not interested in the rest of my blog.
With that, I conclude that there are a few learning points from this simple exercise of analyzing statistics. First, posting regularly is important for a blog to increase stickiness. Second, it’s important to target your advertising efforts on your target audience, rather than drawing in a ton of people who will simply leave upon entry.
Anyway, I noticed quite a lot of internet marketers and bloggers patronizing this blog and I think this will be a good platform to discuss further on how to increase our stickiness and appeal. Suggestions please.
Blogged Under: Internet Marketing
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September 11th, 2008 at 1:25 am
I can’t speak on behalf of all readers of this blog. However, there’re certain things that other readers might feel the same.
Firstly, the blog title is First Million Challenge. So I believe most of the readers are expecting your progress towards reaching your first million. The quest is a journey most people would never fulfill so most ordinary people would rather follow champions/ associate themselves with champions. On a national scale it would be like associating Singapore in winning the silver medal for table tennis, despite the players might not be borned in Singapore. As a side note, you might consider putting a bar, stating your current progress towards a million. The negative part is everyone will know your net worth. But since you decided to publicise your first million journey, you might consider this option.
Secondly, there’s nothing really outstanding happening from the blog like strike a lottery, in lawsuit, a fling with a hot babe etc. It seems to me like an ordinary undergraduate journal on someone finding which path to take. Lots of people might disagree with this view
Thirdly, no pictures in the blog. A picture, which is not relevant might entice the reader to find out how’s the topic related to the picture, resulting in lower bounce rate.
Hope these comments are relevant.
September 14th, 2008 at 6:47 pm
I’ve heard some good things about this blog. Remember to balance the pics with the text tho. cheers!
September 14th, 2008 at 9:08 pm
Videos & a Sexy Video Title are know to decrease bounce rates